THE WAY TO LEARN TO WRITE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1240, 23 September 1911, Page 9

THE WAY TO LEARN TO WRITE

One may quarrel wirh Mr. Robert Blatchford over many tilings, but not over tho quality of his English, which is clear, unuunmered, and effectual. Some importance, therefore, attaches to tho "hints to young writers" which ho is giving in "Tho Clarion." Briefly, his view is that if a man will read the br-t models, and read them carefully enough, he need trouble little about grammar and not at all about analysis. Let him read Bible, Defoe, • Shakespeare, Dickens, Malory, Sir Thomas Browne— and when he finds a word, phnre, or construction better than he commonly uses, write it- down. Thus, Mr. ' Blatchford thinks, ho shall clear his English of fustian and bpmbast, even though ho is ignorant of tho principles which underho its reform. Is not this a case of pursuing a sound idea rather further than it warrants? Analysis is at least as important to good writing as anatomy is to good doctoring. The man who sees a bad sentence may know instinctively that there is something wrong with' it; ho may even, if ho has fulfilled Mr. Blatchford's conditions, b« able to improve it, but ho cannot know how he does jo, and, if ho is a conscientious thinker, cannot, therefore, feel thoroughly satisfied. One is at issue, too, witu Mr. Blatchford over the sharp lino ho draws between what he calls "literary" or "aristocratic" English and "plebeian" or "journalistic" English. He tho verses of Genesis that describo tho Creation, and asks us, with tho press descriptions of Royal ceremonies fresh in our minds, to imagine "what a bewildering display of verbal fireworks a 'Daily Telegraph' lender writer would need" if he had the Creation to deal with. Tho distinction between tho English of books and the English of newspapers is a loose ono. There is quite as much hasty, careless, pretentious, and wearisome waiting with boards to it as without them. Tho only legi.timato distinction is the "general onj between good and bad writers. Jlr. Blatchford belongs to tho former, and for that reason ono t'-i the more sorry to find hin owning allegiance to a inainlv artificial distinction. —'"Manchester Guardian."